Read Online The Planet of Junior Brown by Virginia Hamilton - Free Book Online Page B

they’d somehow forgot to ask the question. Tomorrow Billy had never returned. The group had broken up then. Long after each had gone his separate way, Buddy realized why the boy had not returned. It was not that they had forgotten to ask the question, “Tomorrow, Billy?” It was that they no longer needed to.
    Turning from the candlelight, Buddy surveyed the two boys against the wall. Their eyes hadn’t left his face. He recognized the older of the two to be one of the few kids he had passed along to be part of a group down on Gansevoort Street in the West Village.
    Under Buddy’s steady gaze, the boy thought to tell Buddy his name. “I’m Franklin Moore,” he said. “You may remember me as Russell. That was my real name, the one I had when I first came here.”
    Buddy laughed inwardly. It was a strange dude who would change his name from Russell to Franklin. But it was a rule that a boy moving from one planet to another would have to change his name.
    â€œI don’t want to know your real name,” Buddy told him. “Keep it to yourself, if you need to. But try to forget it, if you’re really Franklin Moore.”
    The boy said nothing. He was quick to learn and his mind clicked in time with what Buddy had just revealed to him about himself.
    â€œWere you told to come up here?” Buddy asked him.
    â€œTomorrow Billy down there say to come up and bring this kid here because they are full up and you suppose to be just through with one group.”
    Buddy listened closely to Franklin Moore. The boy could be a thief, stumbling on the group the way Buddy himself had years ago. No. Once you start suspecting them, you’ll end by giving them passwords to get in. You’ll have to put them in uniforms so you’ll know who belongs. You’ll next distrust anyone who might forget the password or has his uniform stolen.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” Buddy asked the younger boy. The boy was small and yellow-skinned. His hair was freshly cut and washed and he wore clean clothes.
    It took the boy some minutes to come up with a name. He had been taught for however long he had some parent to teach him that his name was who he was.
    â€œLook,” Buddy told him. “If you want to use the name you were born with, okay, because I’ll never know the difference. See, I can’t get inside your head so maybe you make up the name and maybe you don’t, it’s all right. But dig, it’s better you give up the name you were born with. See, because just having a last name the same as the mama or aunt or daddy you once knew reminds you of them. And remembering is going to make you feel pretty bad sometimes when maybe Franklin here or anybody else, either, isn’t around to make you feel better.”
    The boy still hadn’t said anything. Every now and then he peeked shyly at Buddy. Clearly he was in awe of his Tomorrow Billy.
    â€œI think maybe he might be hungry,” Franklin told Buddy. “We had to do some hurrying. I found him out on the street begging. Some drunk had got hold on him and was making him work for him.”
    â€œYou have to stone the drunk to get the kid away?” Buddy asked.
    â€œNothing like that!” Franklin said. He looked shocked but then he understood that Buddy had been testing him.
    â€œI gave him enough money to satisfy the drunk,” Franklin said. “When the drunk had his wine, I just disappeared with the kid.”
    â€œGood,” Buddy said.
    â€œTime we get over to the house on Gansevoort, it’s getting late,” Franklin continued, “and I know I’ve got to get him stashed before night. So they get him cleaned up there and cut his hair—but he didn’t eat because we had to get up here while I can still see the ladder good enough to get him down it.”
    Franklin sighed, glancing at the child next to him. He had already grown somewhat protective of the boy. It was